


And Everything Is You

by elumurr



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crowley is an Overdramatic Bitch and Aziraphale is just enough of a Bastard to be annoyed by him, Footnotes, Getting Together, M/M, Mentions of ABBA, POV Outsider, i guess, i love three things they are abba karaoke and projecting onto crowley, the rating is for implied stuff and swearing in the footnotes, well their songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumurr/pseuds/elumurr
Summary: Once a week, Crowley joins the local pub's karaoke night to sing an ABBA song.Aziraphale doesn't know about this.This is the story of Aziraphale finding out.Also, there's a bunch of students who might or might not be involved.





	And Everything Is You

**Author's Note:**

> So I've got this headcanon of Crowley expressing his feelings via ABBA songs ... and then this happened. 
> 
> This is also heavily built around the headcanon that Aziraphale lets students roam his store for research as long as they don't buy anything because I love it. 
> 
> My main thought while writitng this was "is this song too obscure?" but I tried to stick to what I consider the classics and I didn't include anything that wasn't in Mamma Mia! at one point or another. If you haven't seen Mamma Mia!, what are you actually doing with your life?
> 
> Working titles of this were "Who needs feelings when you can have ABBA" and "The Dreadful ABBA Fic" which would've been more fitting but the actual titles is a line from _Lay All Your Love On Me_ – by ABBA, obviously. 
> 
> This is an outside POV fic and since both Crowley and Aziraphale are male presenting, they are assumed to be gay by the other characters. This doesn't mean they can't be any variation of any gender or sexuality you think fits them best, but that's just how they're perceived here. Having said that, you are not allowed to change the lyrics of an ABBA song, _except_ to make it gayer. Which I did here. 
> 
> This work was approved of by the lovely Carla. Thank you so much!

So there’s this pub somewhere in the middle of London. It’s not exactly the most popular place to be but it also isn’t the biggest place so that adds up. Even though it’s situated in a very touristy area, there are hardly any visitors that the bartenders don’t know by name. All in all, it’s very familiar.

  
Each Wednesday, they host a karaoke night.

  
Although the bar is pretty much always only filled with regulars, this goes up a notch on Wednesdays. Then, you can find exactly these people there

  * Ol’ Jim who actually comes there every day and just sits down at the bar. He doesn’t sing. However, he is not one of those grumpy alcoholics who drink and don’t engage with the rest of the people, he happily chats away with everyone about everything. You can vent to him and he’ll give you advice but you can also ask him about himself. Not that his life is particularly exciting and all his stories are actually pretty underwhelming but if you ask about that time he saw a rat at the train station, he’ll tell you everything about the time he saw a rat at the train station. Rumour has it he never leaves the bar[1]. 
  * Celia, Margaret and Tom, all of them in their mid thirties. They met at this same bar more than ten years ago, on a Wednesday, when they all first entered the establishment and started a conversation about quail. None of them had ever even seen one. They have been coming back ever since, every Wednesday. They do not meet outside of this. Sometimes, they sing, Celia mostly chart hits, Margaret mostly music theatre songs and Tom those _very manly_ 80s hard rock songs that would usually require him to be fifteen years older and to wear a leather jacket.
  * Tan Ya Oh, a Korean drag queen who comes over after her show in the club across the street has ended at about one in the morning and who uses this place as her dressing room. By the time she takes the stage to sing “anything that wouldn’t be in the show”, she has mostly returned to being Just Mark, ruffled sweaty hair, jeans and t-shirt. But no matter whether Just Mark decides to wind down by singing Highway To Hell, an obscure Björk song nobody understands why it is even an option or the kind of classical song that pops up every few years, he never does it without his high heels still on.
  * Of course there’s Lily, not a day under seventy, who is in no way connected to any of the owners of the bar and far from being involved in the organisation of this event. Still, she got asked to present the songs and the people who take the stage. She does so by screaming them mercilessly. Some would call it shrieking. She always wears brightly coloured dresses. And although everyone knows she only owns three of them, the little old lady gets so excited when she’s complimented on her outfit, they all do it every week anyway. And they mean it, every week.
  * The one brave tourist who got lost and isn’t immediately driven out by Lily’s enthusiasm. This happens about once a month. They usually stay for a pint, some even sing a song themselves and then leave quietly.
  * The group of about ten biology students who have started coming here this semester because of a schedule change. It leaves them with a long Wednesday after which they only want to get drunk, which is convenient because they’ve also got Thursdays off now. They are stereotypical students, really, and they love everyone here and everyone loves them. They have become a part of this family fast. They are also enthusiastic, not necessarily good, but dedicated singers who like having a good time.

Oh, and then, of course, there is Sunglasses Guy. Ol’ Jim once said his name was Anthony but this was never confirmed. He looks like a middle aged wannabe rockstar dad who wears black clothes and has yet to be seen without his sunglasses on, hence the nickname. He spends the night sitting in a corner, sipping a glass of vodka, clapping politely but talking to no one. Like the rest of them, he comes here every week and he goes up to the small stage at one point and every time, without fail, he sings a song by ABBA, and gives it his all. He then returns to his seat and leaves when everyone has finished for the night.

Although they are used to a lot in this bar, nobody really knows how to react to _that_.

  
***

  
So there’s this bookshop in Soho. It’s not exactly the most popular place to go to when you want to buy a book but it certainly is the right place to go to when you want to find a book. The owner is a lovely middle aged man who looks like he’s part of the inventory and has been for the past 150 years or so. He gets overly protective of his books when you do try to take them home. But if you’re just a student looking for a good source who can’t afford to buy any of these books anyway, and if you promise to take care of them, he’s an incredibly friendly and smart man who is happy to help you find what you are looking for.

  
Thus, it’s no surprise that there’s a group of literature students, slightly changing with every passing year, that frequent the shop a lot. Most of them don’t exactly come regularly, only when they are looking for a specific book. Despite that, Wednesday nights seem to unofficially have become the time for the students to meet up in the bookshop and to do research, study for upcoming exams or simply discuss their favourite poems over a cup of tea. The owner of the shop, Mr. Fell, is very happy to provide tea, cocoa and biscuits. Never does he rush them to finish their work because he wants to close the shop or go to sleep and more often than not, he engages in their conversations and shares little stories with them when appropriate. The students cannot believe how kind-hearted and soft a person can actually be.

  
Mr. Fell is also most definitely gay, but that’s another story.

  
No wait, actually, this _is_ this story.

  
See, the reason why the students assume this isn’t only due to his appearance, although it certainly helps the point, it is mostly due to the other guy who keeps coming to the shop. He’s a lanky dude who appears not to know that clothes come in other colours than black, he always wears sunglasses and tends to strut into the shop at any time of the day like he owns the place. He doesn’t even seem to notice when there are people around. His name is Crowley.

  
The students know this as soon as they first witness him swaying into the shop, since he usually yells “hey, angel”, to which Mr. Fell _always_ replies with “Crowley, my dear, so nice to see you” as if he were surprised. It happens almost every time they’re there. Most of the times, Crowley arrives in the afternoon and stays (at least) until the last student has left. However, on Wednesdays, he leaves early or stays out completely, probably not to annoy the students he usually ignores.

  
If you happen to be in the shop around noon, you might catch him coming in shouting “ready for lunch, angel?” Whoever might still be there by then just quietly walks out because it would be awfully embarrassing to be asked to leave by a flustered Mr. Fell who wants to close the shop so he can have lunch with his husband.

  
Exactly. Due to what was mentioned above, and due to what he tells the students on Wednesday nights, the students have concluded that Mr. Fell is married to this Crowley guy. They all find it horribly endearing how much he seems to love his “angel” – a term that stuck with the students when talking about the owner outside of the shop – and they all want to find that someone who never stops looking at them the way Mr. Fell looks at Crowley – like he hung the stars.

***

The observant reader might have realised that Mr. Fell’s Husband Who Goes Out On Wednesdays seems to have a lot in common with Sunglasses Guy At Wednesday Karaoke. This can be easily explained by the following fact: They are the same person.

  
Now, if you were a biology student who happened to visit Mr. Fell’s bookshop from time to time, you would certainly be aware of this fact. However, although biology students spend a lot of their time reading books, they don’t usually need a specific annotated first edition copy of a long forgotten collection of works from an obscure nineteenth century poet and thus, they don’t usually end up there.

  
Unless there is a biology student who happens to have, say, a girlfriend who studies English literature and runs straight into Sunglasses Guy From Karaoke Night while entering the bookshop her girlfriend asked her to come to.

  
“I’m sorry”, she might say and “wait, aren’t you – ” But the guy has already left.  
Her girlfriend spots her, greets her with a kiss on the cheek and apparently has heard the attempt at an apology, because she explains, “That was Crowley, Mr. Fell’s husband.”

  
This is a lot of information about a mysterious weirdo who apparently really likes ABBA and who you’ve known for months but have never talked to and who just almost knocked you out. So the biology student doesn’t say anything for a bit and then, “Mr. Fell?”  
“Yes, the owner. Of A. Z. Fell and Co.”, laughs the girlfriend, gesturing around the shop and when she still doesn’t get a reaction, adds. “You know, Angel!” The biology student faintly remembers her referring to him as such.

  
And then Mr. Fell himself appears, smiles, and asks “Oh hello, who do we have here?”

  
“This is Lynn, my girlfriend”, provides the girlfriend.

  
“Nice to meet you, Lynn”, he shakes her hand, still smiling brightly. “Is there anything I can do for you or are you just here for our wonderful Norah?” Mr. Fell appears to be very nice and Lynn really should not stare but she is so utterly overwhelmed by this situation that she doesn’t say “No, thank you, Mr. Fell. I’m just here to pick up my girlfriend.”

  
What she does, instead, is looking Mr. Fell in the face and blurting “Do you not like ABBA?”

  
If this was an inappropriate answer, Mr. Fell doesn’t let it show. He does seem to be genuinely interested, however, when he asks. “What is an ABBA?”

  
“You know, the Swedish band!”

  
Mr. Fell considers this and nods. “Ah, so probably be-bop, then.” Lynn shakes her head, partly to disagree, partly in disbelief, as he continues, “I should ask Crowley about it. He might have heard about this ABBA.”

  
Lynn blinks. She is going to lose her mind.

  
***

  
When Lynn explains her reaction in the bookshop to Norah, she simply laughs and tells her she’s overthinking it. Lynn doesn’t know what “it” even is or what it means.

  
However, Norah also starts recounting Mr. Fell’s Wednesday night stories, and that’s when Lynn notices (and possibly _starts_ overthinking, too).

  
The night Mr. Fell talks about a fight he had with Crowley and how he stormed out of the shop only to return a few hours later and how happy he is that they made up, Crowley sings _Mamma Mia_.

  
The night Mr. Fell admits he’d had a bad week until Crowley made him close early the day before - “I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t there to help you with this, Lucy” - so they could go for a picnic and how Mr. Fell felt so much better afterwards, Crowley sings _Chiquitita_.

  
The night they ask Mr. Fell about the travel brochures lying around which leads to him not only explaining that Crowley and him were thinking about going on holiday to Paris but also talking about the last time they went there, which was apparently very meaningful to them[2], Crowley sings _Our Last Summer_.

  
The night the students spend mostly giggling at Mr. Fell’s raging blush caused by Crowley winking suggestively when leaving the bookshop, Crowley sings _Voulez-Vous_ and _Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)_, before leaving relatively early. The hypotheses the students have about what happened that night shall not be spoken about in public.

  
Of course, ABBA songs are often very literal and shouldn’t be taken word for word, and of course, sometimes Crowley sings relatively neutral songs like _Thank You For The Music_ or _I Have A Dream_, but mostly, the songs seem to fit their current mood.

  
And although Crowley still doesn’t talk to anyone, the students start caring about him and his husband.

  
So when one night, Crowley takes the stage to sing _My Love, My Life,_ Lynn is worried.

_I've seen it on your face_  
_ Tells me more than any worn out old phrase_  
_ So now we'll go separate ways_  
_ Never again we two_  
_ Never again, nothing I can do_

She takes a video and sends it to Norah, who is most definitely still in the bookshop, and “Are they okay?”

  
Norah knows what the songs Crowley sings mean, and she does care a great deal about Mr. Fell’s happiness, so she can’t suppress a gasp before getting up to look for him in the backroom of the shop.

  
“I’m sorry, this is an awfully personal question”, she begins as soon as she’s found him, making more tea for the students. He really is the kindest soul she knows. Mr. Fell looks at her curiously, expectantly even. She takes a breath and asks, “Are you and your husband alright?”

  
Norah could swear Mr. Fell almost drops the teapot he is currently holding but catches himself in the last second before managing to get out an “Excuse me dear, my what?”

  
“Your husband. Crowley”, she repeats.

  
“Oh.” And Mr. Fell looks surprised. “I am terribly sorry, I cannot explain how this misunderstanding came to be but … Crowley and I are not married, dear girl.” He says it in a tone of voice that makes Norah understand that they aren’t _anywhere near_ married, so she drops the issue, mumbles a quick “I’m sorry for assuming” and is about to return to the book she was reading earlier, when Mr. Fell calls her back.

  
“Wait. Why did you ask? Is Crowley not doing well?”

  
Surely, now it probably doesn’t matter anymore because Mr. Fell and Crowley are not A Thing and this might be all wrong, but they are probably still good friends and Mr. Fell honestly seems to care. This is why Norah reveals the theory about Crowley’s Feelings-Karaoke and shows him the video of his drunk friend singing about letting go the love of his life.

  
And for the first time ever since she’s started coming to A. Z. Fell and Co., this student gets to see Mr. Fell’s facial expression morph into something that isn’t utterly kind and delighted.

  
It’s not exactly anger, and very far from rage, but it could be described as annoyance with a hint of exhaustion.

  
And then he puts down the teapot, straightens his bowtie and says, “You will need to show me where this place is, Norah. I have to go there.”

  
***

  
Now imagine this: It’s late at night and every decision you have made throughout your life has led you to you sitting in a somewhat shabby pub on a weekday. The people there, including yourself, are a bit weird but at least they fit the situation you are currently in. What would be the most unexpected thing that could happen now?

  
An example:

  
While a weird but well-known dude in sunglasses is on the tiny stage singing an ABBA song, which itself is a pretty strange image already, a middle aged man wearing a cream coloured suit which has gone out of fashion a hundred years ago enters the building, half a dozen young adults in tow. They look like a field trip of the English department gone wrong[3]. The only person in the room who doesn’t immediately turn their head towards them, who doesn’t even notice them, is the guy on stage who most likely has his eyes closed as he continues to sing:

_“Look into his angel eyes_  
_ One look and you're hypnotized_  
_ He'll take your heart and you must pay the price_  
_ Look into his angel eyes_  
_ You'll think you're in paradise_  
_ And one day you'll find out he wears a disguise_  
_ Don't look too deep into those angel eyes”_

The Maybe-English-Professor-Guy listens for a few seconds, then stops the music with a wave of his hand[4] and waits for the singer to spot him. Apparently, they know each other, because when he does, he gasps and English professor says, “Crowley! What the[5] – heavens are you doing here?”

  
And then he drags ABBA man out of the pub while you still don’t know what’s going on.

  
They are probably headed towards the next bookshop though.

***

A week later in the very same pub, the karaoke regulars have all arrived. Everyone except for one, namely Sunglasses Guy who they now all know to be called Crowley. This is pretty unusual, as usually, Crowley isn’t the one to miss karaoke night[6].

  
Only one person in there knows where he is at the time, and this person just received a text from her girlfriend saying “We’re on our way now. See you in a bit.”

  
And really, not long after that, Crowley, English professor from last week who the Londoners in the pub – so, all of them – have identified as the strange Mr. Fell from that bookshop, and a couple more students enter the pub.

  
Crowley immediately seeks out the DJ. Norah immediately seeks out Lynn who greets her by asking “Did you get anything out of him?”

  
Norah sighs. “So basically, Crowley had lurked in the bookshop and saw Mr. Fell talking to a friend who had just gifted him a book Mr. Fell was really excited about or something? Long story short, Crowley badly misinterpreted the situation and apparently, he is ‘a bit hot-headed’ as Mr. Fell put it; what a way to say he’s overdramatic as hell if you ask me. He then ran off in a jealous rage and yeah. We saw how that went.”

  
If she’s completely honest, Lynn feels a bit bad because she was the one to send the video to Norah but it isn’t exactly her fault that the literature students assumed that they were married. Norah can read Lynn’s troubled expression effortlessly and adds, “Don’t worry. Carl caught them snogging behind a bookshelf on Monday so I guess they have also talked about, you know, their feelings .” She grins.

  
“This is their first outing as _boyfriends_. You’ll love what Crowley’s got planned. He told me on the way here. He can actually be a pretty cool guy if he doesn’t try too hard.”

  
And, speaking of the devil, this is when Crowley steps onto the stage and _Lay All Your Love On Me_ starts playing. And Crowley starts singing.

_“I wasn't jealous before we met_  
_ Now every man that I see is a potential threat”_

Norah chuckles. “A drama queen. As I said.” Lynn rolls her eyes, but is captured by Crowley’s performance nevertheless.

_“I feel a kind of fear_  
_ When I don't have you near_  
_ Unsatisfied, I skip my pride_  
_ I beg you dear_

_Don't go wasting your emotion_  
_ Lay all your love on me_  
_ Don't go sharing your devotion_  
_ Lay all your love on me”_

Even if someone in the audience weren’t paying attention, and they all are, they could see the love oozing from Crowley’s eyes, despite his sunglasses, and that he’s never meant a song he sang there like he means this one. As soon as the song has come to a close, he goes straight to where Mr. Fell is standing and kisses him flat on the mouth. The students start to cheer and everyone else in the pub joins in. Mr. Fell can be seen blushing but more importantly, beaming at Crowley.

  
Norah shakes her head. “I really don’t know what took them so long. From what they’ve told us, they’ve known each other for _eons_.”

  
***

  
So there’s this pub in London. Wednesdays are for karaoke. There are a mostly a couple of regulars, including a few former students who got stuck after their year without Thursday classes. Most of them sing quite a lot.

  
Crowley also still goes there and he stills sings an ABBA song every week. He picks them at random, whichever might be on his mind at the moment, and it doesn’t matter if they are happy or sad or silly, he’s always in a good mood anyway. His mood might be kept up by his lovely companion Mr. Fell who cheers him on and kisses him when he’s finished. However, Mr. Fell never goes on stage himself.

  
Well, except for the one time of course when he sang _I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do_, only to then propose to Crowley. That night, Crowley damn near fainted. He also said yes.

  
Now, when the students in the bookshop ask Mr. Fell about his husband during one of their Tuesday night meetups, it’s much less awkward.

* * *

[1]Also his real name is Frank. Everyone knows this and he’s never asked anyone to call him Ol’ Jim. Everyone just does for some reason.[return to text]

  
[2]They’re pretty sure it must’ve been their honeymoon trip, although Mr. Fell tells says some pretty weird things they don’t entirely get. Something about being captured in the Bastille and Crowley having to save him. They theorise that they went to see a very bad opera and Crowley allowed them to leave early to get crêpes.[return to text]

  
[3]To be fair, they sort of are.[return to text]

  
[4]Of course he doesn’t actually turn off the music himself, since that would be a miracle, and the wave was presumably merely a sign for the DJ to press that stop button now. A very urgent wave apparently.[return to text]

  
[5]He looks like one of these people who legally cannot say “fuck”. But right now, he looks like a person who can’t say fuck but really wants to say fuck.[return to text]

  
[6}He has done so once before, a couple of months ago. They were worried at first but forgot about it quickly. What they didn’t know at the time was that they had all right to be worried since Sunglasses Guy spent that night looking for a hospital in Oxfordshire in the hopes of saving the world. The trip initially wasn’t deemed a success but he wouldn’t have been of much use in the pub either. ABBA didn’t exactly write a song titled “I’ve lost the fucking Antichrist”.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> **Me:** Crowley is not dependent on ABBA songs to express his feelings anymore and the two are not connected because he really just wants to sing _Does Your Mother Know_ and _If It Wasn't For The Nights_ and _Knowing Me, Knowing You_.  
**Also me:** Crowley sings _Summer Night City_ and they fuck in St. James' Park. 
> 
> Okay now I just have a headcanon about them for pretty much every ABBA song. Talk to me about them in the comments!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
